In electric staplers used in post-processing devices, a clincher mechanism is typically equipped for bending staple legs of a staple, which penetrate sheets of paper, along a surface the sheets of paper (e.g., see Japanese Utility Application Publication No, Sho 61-105583). However, in conventional staplers, the staple legs of the staple penetrating the sheets of paper are likely not to be properly bent onto the sheets of paper, so that a poor binding, such as buckling of staple legs, reverse bending, rising-up of staple legs or lifting of staple legs, is occurred.
Thus, in order to inhibit a poor binding, a stapler, in which a pair of clincher mechanism configured to bend staple legs by a pivoting motion thereof are provided, is disclosed from Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 11-207654 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-119246.
In the clincher mechanism configured to bend staple legs by a pivoting motion as describe above, it is necessary to position pivot fulcrums of clinchers to locations, which are near to the middle of the stapler in a width direction thereof and also spaced from the sheets of paper, in order to inhibit a poor binding and thus to properly bend the staple legs. However, if the pivot fulcrums of the clinchers are spaced from the sheets of paper, there is a problem that a height of the clincher mechanisms is increased and thus a height of the entire stapler is also increased.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object thereof is to provide a stapler in which it is possible to realize a stabilized bent shape of staple legs and also to keep a height of the stapler lower.